Friday, April 19, 2013

I don't mean to keep harping on about my boobs and the bras that contain them (http://psb1969.blogspot.com/2013/04/my-monday.html), but I have been having some recent issues that were causing me concern. I don't know how to really describe what was going on...except to say that my left breast started to not feel "right." So I did what any mature 40-something woman would do...I whined about it, mashed around on my own boob 37 times a day and constantly Googled my symptoms. I don't know when I will ever learn that I can seriously scare the shit out of myself by looking up ANYTHING, even the possible causes of a sore toe, and that WebMD is just going to give me nightmares. I tried to enlist the help of the hubby... Well, anyone who knows him probably knows how THAT went...

Me: Jeff, feel my boobs and tell me if they feel all rightJeff: You got it!Me: NO!!! This is purely for medicinal purposes...does one feel different than the other??Jeff: GropeMe: Seriously, do they feel the same as they always have?Jeff: (Something inappropriate that I can't even repeat here.)Me: Look, no...stop that. I am trying to determine if...Jeff: Mhmmmm....boobies.Me: God, NEVERMIND, Beavis.

After three week of this...I couldn't really tell if I was REALLY having soreness and tenderness or if I'd caused it myself by obsessively trying to see if there was something wrong. Finally, flipping through my calendar, I realized that my yearly "lady" exam was coming up in May...and I was gonna have to go to a real live medical professional soon anyway, so I called the office...

"But Marianne!" you say..."Why didn't you just talk to your VERYOWN best friend, Jacquie, who ALSO happens to be a Gynecologist? Who even has her own blog : http://anappleadayjq.com. FILLED with "questions you'd ask your best friend if she was a gynecologist"?"Well, I didn't because she's in New Zealand at the moment, I'd have had to email her because I can't call her and I miss her terribly anyway and I was too busy feeling sorry for myself, plus she will tell me to go into the office and get my boobs squished in the mammogram machine and also will probably lecture me about quitting smoking completly even though I only do it a little bit and also that it's probably all connected to the fact that I'm over 40 and these things happen when your boobs get old...but she'd only be telling me these things because she loves me and...Yeah, I have no real good excuse for not contacting her...

But I did finally put my big girl panties on and did the next best thing...I called Jacquie's nurse, who worked me in with my Gyno (they are part of the same practice...J's just on a leave of absence right now) so that she could examine me and see if my left boob was trying to rot off. My doctor, Dr. C, is a very awesome...she's every bit as blunt as Jacquie and even though I can resent that sometimes, it's truly what I need. My only complaint (and this is TOTALLY my issue, not hers) is that she is so nice and friendly that she talks to me during exams. Despite my willingness to talk about my breastular area all over the internets and all...I'm actually quite a modest person. I would really rather lie on my back and think of England during my exam while some nice soothing Muzak plays in the background and NO ONE talks until everyone is equally clothed. But Dr. C, in what I am sure is an attempt to make me unclench every muscle in my body, tries to help me forget what's going on by chatting with me...

"What a lovely anklet you have! I have been looking for one with multicolored beads forEVER..."

"Oh? Anklet? Oh, the one right there by your right ear??? Gah!"

(That really happened, by the way)

Finally, after I have been poked and prodded, and properly felt up, Dr. C tells me that she didn't feel anything wrong and helps me sit up and asks me again what my concern was exactly as I turn seventeen shades of red because I am sitting there wearing basically a couple of paper towels...

"My left one feels heavier than my right..."

Which is when she lifts one in each hand like she's gauging the weight of a couple of canteloupes (they're melons...get it?) and says, "Meh...not that I can tell." Then she lets me get dressed and sends me over to the lab for a mammogram (I KNEW IT!) and a sonogram. The sonogram wasn't so bad, it was the mammogram I had been dreading...and I was right too...they have a new booby-mashing machine that has a readout WHERE I CAN SEE IT of how much force they were mashing my boobies with...(around 25 lbs)...Seriously, people, this is information I do not need access to...it just freaks my analytical brain out and stresses me more. Twenty-five pounds is a lot of weight for my girls to get mashed by, ya'll. It's like setting the box of cat litter down on one.

Preliminary reactions from everyone (I got felt up by three different people in one day...yet no one even bought me a drink) are that nothing is wrong except that I have 40+ year old boobs...but I still need to wait for the official results. In the meantime, I need to quit smoking (Gah!), I have to give up caffeine (gasp! this is even worse than I thought) and I need to go get myself properly fitted for a bra (because I haven't been violated enough, apparently). Looks like my cigarette and Starbucks money is going to be going towards some new bras. At least Jeff will be pleased.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Have you ever had one of those days when one of your under wires decides to make a bid for freedom, and you have to run to the bathroom 17 times while you're trying to work to try to push it down where it belongs because it keeps poking you in your side boob but then it works its way back out 3 minutes later and jabs you again? Then, when you get in your car at the end of the day to go home you realize that you cannot take it ONE. MORE. SECOND? So you drive with your knees so that you can unfasten your bra and can finally work it out one of your arm holes of your shirt...then you fling the damn thing into the passenger seat and let out a sigh of relief...as you start praying that you won't have a flat tire or anything on the way home because...hey, gravity stopped being your friend about ten years ago, but so-help-you-God there was no way you could have stood having that thing on for the drive home? No??? Must just be me then.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

A couple of posts ago, I discussed deviled egg plates. I mentioned that the only female in my office that didn't own one was Susan from Wisconsin. Susan is one of my favorite people in the world, even if she is a Yankee. Sadly, she is leaving the company we work for (after 20+ years!) She's taking a new job in Mobile, AL where she will have 10 minute access to the Gulf Coast beaches, so I can't blame her at all. But I am going to miss the fire out of her. While we were organizing her going-away luncheon, I decided to put together a list of all of the Southern things that we (me & my office-mates) have taught her. I'm editing the list to take out some of the inside jokes...but I'm sharing the rest with y'all:

Things Susan has learned about being Southern:

When it’s raining while the sun is shining, it means the devil is beating his wife with a wet dishtowel.

How to open up a can of whoop-ass. (Note: We suspect that she always knew how to do this...just not what to call it.)

How to properly pronounce the word for a small stream of water (creek)

How to make cheese toast. (Seriously...how do you get through childhood without learning how to make cheese toast...WHICH IS NOT AN OPEN-FACED GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH...cheese toast is made in the oven, not on the stove-top)

What it means when you’re “fixin to” do something.

What pan-fried chicken is.

When to bless somebody’s heart (and that it may not be meant as a compliment)

What “swingers” really means…and that it is not something to talk about in polite company. (Note: this may have been a blonde moment and not a yankee moment...but I'm still including it on the list)

How much something cost and where you got it. (She really, really hated whenever someone did that..."What a nice pair of earrings." "Why thank you so much. I got them at Target on sale for $4.40")

That a “hoe-down” is a fun party. (I mean, even the BEATLES knew that (Rocky Racoon) and they were from England.)

That when you have a hoe-down, people are going to bring a covered dish, so get over it already. (This really drove her nuts. She'd throw a party...people would ask her "What can I bring?" and she'd always say "Nothing...I've got it covered." and then we'd show up with something anyway.)

Whether or not it is proper to put sugar or cheese in grits. (It is not.)

That “the cat stealing a baby’s breath” is an old-wives’ tale.

The difference between a hose pipe and a water pipe.

How to make a tomato sammich (White Bread. sliced tomatoes. Mayo (Preferrably Blue Plate, it's the only time I don't prefer Kraft Mayo). salt and pepper) And a true-blue, honest-to-God-real tomato sammich is made on WonderBread...which you can't even buy anymore.

What a thing-a-ma-jig is

The true meaning of “winner-winner, chicken-dinner.”

What “some count” is…(i.e. that those ribs are some count)

That GRITS are girls raised in the south…and that she has two of them.

How to correctly pronounce P-C-Bs. Polychlorinated Biphenyls. We are a bunch of engineering/lab nerds with Southern accents. PCB is Pay-Cee-Bays.

What a freaking tornado warning means! (And not to try to drive yourself through one)! (She drove through the storm that produced the tornados that deccimated Tuscaloosa on April 27, 2011...against stringent advice.)

The right way to eat pumpkin seeds and scuppernongs. (You don't eat the outer parts of either)

What it means to “bow up.” (We struggled forever to articulate for her what this meant...this action happens when someone says something that offends someone else: John bowed up at Paul when Paul made fun of his shirt. The best explanation we could come up with was that of a hissing cat...whose back "bows up" when it hisses.)

That when you’re sore from too much exercise the next morning you are “Stove up”

When you twist your ankle, it gets “Swole up”

Unfortunately, we never taught her how to appreciate gravy.

After reveiwing the list during her luncheon, we then presented Susan with her very own egg plate to take with her and declared her no-longer a Yankee, but a properly raised Southern Lady. Bless her heart.